


A Boy and His Dog

by LadyBrooke



Series: The Gil-galad Dinner Party [2]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crack Treated Seriously, Eventual Happy Ending, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Vignette series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:33:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22019431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyBrooke/pseuds/LadyBrooke
Summary: Huan dies.Gil-galad is born.Sometimes, second chances do happen.
Series: The Gil-galad Dinner Party [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1704745
Comments: 15
Kudos: 73





	A Boy and His Dog

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moiety](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moiety/gifts).



**I.**

'Send me back,' Huan thinks into the darkness. 

'You may pass onto the afterlife of Men if you wish. You died for Beren and Lúthien, you may share their fate if you wish,' he hears from the nothingness that surrounds him.

'No. Send me back.'

'You cannot change fate, old friend.'

'But I can delay it.' Huan thinks of the elves he has loved. 'A few more years to enjoy life. A few more years for each of them.'

There is a soundless sigh in the darkness. 

'I hate to see you suffer again, but you are right. You must keep your past secret, however.'

'It was not suffering, it was love.' Huan feels his being begin to shift, and smiles. "Thank you."

'Be safe, Gil-galad.'

**II.**

The world shifts and adapts to his return.

Fingon did not have a son, Orodreth had only one daughter. But now- now some believe that each of them did have a son.

Now, as Círdan looks at the child in his care, he accepts that there are some things he will not understand, but this boy belongs somehow to the line of Finwë.

And if Gil-Galad sometimes smiles oddly at the word belongs, well, only he and elves that Círdan does not or cannot speak to now remember long ago meetings in the fields of Valinor. 

(“Is that your dog?” asked one boy, blonde hair flying up as Huan leaped forward to lick his face in greeting. 

“Oromë gave him to me, if that’s what you’re asking,” said a silver haired boy, not yet full of spite for the other boy. “But he’s my friend, really, part of the family.”

“Welcome to the family, in that case,” said a laughing boy with gold in his braids to the dog, ignoring his cousins. “Tyelko can do with someone to watch him.”)

**III.**

Beren and Luthien pass soon after he is returned to life. 

He wants to howl at the unfairness of it - he wants to write letters to their son - he wants to write to Tyelko.

Instead he sits on the beach near Cirdan’s house and stares at the sky. 

Cirdan eventually seeks him out. 

“Death is always sad,” Cirdan says, sitting and wrapping his arms around his legs as he looks at the stars too. Gil-galad does not ask who Cirdan has lost, because Huan had know, but he also does not tell. “But they have gone together onto new adventures. And all we can ask sometimes is not to be parted, even if the end is not of our choosing.”

Gil-galad thinks of a silver-haired woman on a cold slab and a dark-haired man lying on the steps, and above all else, the golden haired woman he had only seen once after that, weeping in private. He thinks too of Curvo and Tyelpe crying, and Maedhros staring into a fire on a beach when he had thought all was lost- 

And he thinks of himself and this new life. 

“Perhaps the end is not always the end,” he says in response. “Maybe Eru will take pity on us one day, and reunite us with our loved ones. Even if we have to wait, will it not be worth it?”

Cirdan looks at him and smiles faintly.

“You will make a wise king, Erenion.”

**IV.**

News comes one day of one of the elves that some consider his father. The High King is dead, they cry, and the Feanorions scattered to the winds once more as Turgon retreats to his city. 

He wants to write letters to Tyelko again. He wants to howl with rage at Maedhros’ grief and Fingon’s fate.

Instead he sighs, and feels the bonds of fate pressing down on him. Only Turgon and Orodreth now stand between him and the crown. 

He shudders at that thought, and then casts it from his mind - Gondolin and Nargothrond are both beloved of Ulmo, and shall not fall soon, he thinks. 

He is wrong.

Orodreth’s rings sit on his desk too soon. 

**V.**

Doriath also falls. 

This is the most painful of all, because this time ruin is not brought by Morgoth.

This time it is brought by elves he has known and still loves.

Gil-galad runs and runs and runs when they bring news of the deaths of Dior’s twin sons, left in the woods by Celegorm’s cruel servants. He runs until he finally collapses, exhausted and crying, on the beach.

He convinces himself that Tyelko could not have known what they would do. Surely, at this very moment, Tyelko is raging at those elves in the Halls. 

He hates himself for the moment of doubt when he wonders if Tyelko did know.

Then he picks himself up and returns to his rooms.

Celebrimbor is the only one left now he can contact. While Gil-galad cannot tell him who he is, it is just barely acceptable to send a letter expressing his condolences.

**VI.**

There is always more bad news. 

He knows his memory is supposed to be perfect, but later Gondolin, Doriath, and Nargothrond blend together in his mind until it feels like they all happened at once, burning away his past. 

Gondolin falls, and he feels more guilty that he barely remembers anything of Turgon than anything else. Or he thinks he does, until he hears of Aredhel’s son and remembers her flight. 

Huan had been there still, with Tyelko. If they had followed, if they had found them before they reached the city, could they have changed things. Would Tyelko have acted as he did in Nargothrond, if she had been there?

Gil-galad is king now and he shakes those thoughts from his mind.

He had never thought a crown could be so heavy, when Tyelko used to put a circlet on Huan’s head and laugh before parties in Tirion. 

Each time he remembers those days, the crown feels heavier. 

**VII.**

He hopes that the deaths in Doriath will change things, that Maitimo and Kano will be less willing to risk each other’s or the twins’ deaths. 

He is wrong. News comes when Eärendil is gone at sea. Sirion has been attacked. The Ambarussa are dead. Elwing is a bird (his court finds this unbelievable. He does not). Elwing’s twin sons are missing.

More news comes eventually, and Gil-galad feels as though he can breathe again, if not easily. The twins are with Kano and Maitimo, who evidently are tormented by guilt and dead twins.

Gil-galad should not be reassured by that, but he is. 

As night sets, he looks to the skies and remembers a workshop enveloped by the same bright light. 

**VIII.**

Two boys arrive in his court one day from the Fëanorian camp. He does not rush to greet them as he wishes he could, but he does greet them as cousins.

Elrond is suspicious and Elros watchful, as though they do not trust that they will not be treated as traitors for still loving Maglor and Maedhros, especially after word comes of their fates. 

He cannot tell them of his own history, but he shelters them and tries to express his feelings without words.

They both understand, but Elrond stays and Elros doesn’t.

Gil-galad cannot help but weep for Elrond when the news comes of Elros’ death, but not for Elros himself - Elros has gone to Luthien and Beren, and he trusts his friends to shelter this boy who is their descendant and beloved by their friend. 

(Hundreds of years later, ships arrive. They bring word of Eru sending a wave over Elros’ island, sinking it, children and innocents stricken down with the guilty. Tar-Míriel vanished beneath the waves, they say, and he barely flinches at this reminder of long lost friends.

He greets the new arrivals with only the faintest trace of horror on his face. 

In his bedroom that night, he stares at the same sky he looked down from so long ago, a warm voice wishing him luck in his second life, and wonders if all of his friends will go down paths he cannot understand.) 

**IX.**

Celebrimbor comes the closest of any to knowing his secret. 

It does not surprise Gil-galad. He remembers days spent with Tyelpe, in the fields of Valinor and the plains of Beleriand, guarding this boy who was so dear to Tyelko. 

Celebrimbor’s mouth quirks into an odd smile when there is no questions about why the Star of Fëanor is all over his city and the gates he makes for the dwarves, as the rest of the court save Elrond demands he asks. 

Gil-galad does not, because he also remembers Fëanor as he was and not as he became. How he had doted on a boy and his dog, and later how he doted on the boy’s nephew and the same dog. 

Gil-galad’s hands tremble as he receives the latest letter from Celebrimbor and realizes that Celebrimbor did not recognize Annatar for what he is. 

He sets out as soon as he can for the city.

It is not fast enough - he is pinned down, Elrond is delayed as well, and this time he does howl with rage at the sight. 

“My lord,” someone says, “We will not be able to retrieve the body. The orcs are too numerous-“

“Have our archers douse their arrows and light them,” Gil-galad says, closing his eyes.

Celebrimbor shares his grandfather’s looks and his grandfather’s fate. 

Gil-galad has lived two lives and never been more thankful for a fire, as he watches the orcs run from the sight as Celebrimbor’s body vanishes. Celebrimbor would have appreciated the drama of it, but the smoke gusts on the wind and Gil-galad’s eyes water.

‘Tyelko,’ he thinks, ‘I am sorry, so sorry that I could not protect him like I promised you.’

**X.**

"Greetings, King of Werewolves," Gil-galad barks at Sauron as they meet on the battlefield. 

Sauron's eyes flash with recognition. 

Too late, Gil-galad remembers that no one was supposed to know. 

But this- this is his second death, and he will not shy from the truth now. 

Sauron is cruel, as cruel as Mairon had been kind in those long ago days when they had both been in Valinor, when elves had still been a future. 

There is no escape, but still, he lunges forward, lance in hand.

It hurts, it hurts- it burns through his body and his being- it does not-

It stops. 

There is a silver-haired elf in front of him. 

“Huan," the elf says, falling to his knees and wrapping his arms around Huan. "Thank you."

And this? This is good.   
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> All credit for this idea goes to moiety’s eight year old daughter, who originally proposed the idea of Huan = Gil-galad. Moiety shared it with the rest of us, and I ended up writing it. 
> 
> It went angstier at points than intended, and so I still need to write the eight year old appropriate version.


End file.
